At Confederation, most French Canadians felt their homeland was Quebec; they supported the new arrangement because it separated Quebec from Ontario, creating an autonomous French-Canadian province loosely associated with the others. Unaware of other French-Canadian groups in British North America, Quebeckers were not concerned with minority rights, but only with the French character and autonomy of their own province.

However, political and economic circumstances necessitated the granting of wide linguistic and educational rights to Quebec's Anglo-Protestant minority. Growing...